Fifty shades of football: Day 17

(We’re counting down to the first Saturday of college football, now 34 days away)

I like that idea about the most important stretches in the SEC West schedules so much that I’m saving it for Monday – for one thing, because it will get more traffic that way, but also because of something I noticed this morning and wanted to talk about a little bit.

I have become addicted to checking in each day with the website Pre-Snap Read. The writer, Paul Myerberg, is counting down all 120 major-college programs, and he got to No. 41 this morning.

His list so far has included five SEC teams:

96-Kentucky

93-Ole Miss

66-Vanderbilt

55-Texas A&M

44-Missouri

So that will put the remaining nine SEC teams into the Top 40.

(Update:Auburn is No. 40 in Monday’s installment.)

You can compare that with Phil Steele’s preseason Top 40, which includes 10 SEC teams, but note that Steele’s list is an attempt to project where teams will wind up at the end of the seaso, while Myerberg appears to be ranking teams on preseason outlook:

3, LSU

5, Alabama

8, Georgia

10, Florida

16, Arkansas (which he says he dropped after the coaching change)

23. South Carolina

27. Tennessee

28. Mississippi State

29. Auburn

30. Texas A&M

Steele likes Texas A&M better than Myerberg, and I have to say I think Steele might be off-base on that one. New coach, new quarterback, new schemes on both sides of the football AND a new league? Sounds like the potential for a long season in College Station.